be comforted.

"I shall have to take lessons from that lumpy professor, Dolly," she
said. "And you know how I used to hate him when he _would_ make love to
you. And that was mamma's fault, too, because she would patronize him
and call him 'a worthy person.' He was the only man who admired you I
ever knew her to encourage, and she would n't have encouraged him if he
had n't been so detestable."

It was very evident that the eldest Miss Bilberry was in a highly
rebellious and desperate state of mind. Dolly's daily visits,
educational though they were, had been the brightest gleams of sunlight
in her sternly regulated existence. No one had ever dared to joke in the
Bilberry mansion but Dolly, and no one but Dolly, had ever made the clan
gatherings bearable to Euphemia; and now that Dolly was cut off
from them all, and there were to be no more jokes and no more small
adventures, life seemed a desert indeed. And then with the calamitous
prospect of Switzerland and the lumpy professor before her, Phemie was
crushed indeed.

"Mamma doesn't know I came," she confessed, tearfully, at last; "but
I could n't help it, Dolly, I could n't go away without asking you to
write to me and to let me write to you. You will write to me, won't
you?"

Dolly promised at once, feeling a trifle affected herself. She had
always been fond of Phemie, and inclined to sympathize with her, and now
she exerted herself to her utmost to cheer her. She persuaded her to
sit down, and after picking up the muff and umbrella and parcels, took
a seat by her, and managed to induce her to dry her tears and enter into
particulars.

"It will never do for Lady Augusta to see that you have been crying,"
she said. "Dry your eyes, and tell me all about it, and--wait a minute,
I have a box of chocolates here, and I know you like chocolates."

It was a childish consolation, perhaps, but Dolly knew what she
was doing and whom she was dealing with, and this comforting with
confections was not without its kindly girlish tact. Chocolates were one
of Phemie's numerous school-girl weaknesses, and a weakness so rarely
indulged in that she perceptibly brightened when her friend produced the
gay-colored, much-gilded box. And thus stimulated, she poured forth her
sorrows with more coherence and calmness. She was to go to Switzerland,
that was settled, and the others were to be placed in various other
highly select educational establishments. They were becoming too old
now,